Did we drop nap too early?

[Poobs2022]

Help. I am tired and cranky and fed up. My LB dropped his nap in January. He was showing all the signs of wanting to so we went for it. Worked great for a couple of weeks and he was sleeping until 6.30 - later than he'd ever done before! He's always been a 5.45/6am kid. However the last month we've been battling a lot of 5am's and it's killing us slowly because he won't go back to sleep so we spend an hour going back and forth to his room to tell him to get back into bed. He has a gro clock and his room is dark and a comfortable temperature so nothing like that is making him wake so early.

He goes to bed at 7 and is asleep almost immediately but when he's waking at 5 he's tired. He's rubbing his eyes from the minute he wakes up and struggles to not fall asleep in his lunch at nursery. They've had to readjust the dessert so he can get down from the table first otherwise he's asleep at the table. During the day if I ask him if he wants to sleep he will always sign no but he will fall asleep on the way to sainsburys in the car and it's only 10 mins away!

Did we drop his nap too early? Is he overtired? I just don't know what to do but I'm fed up feeling like I'm doing something wrong with his sleep.

He seems to need a nap.

Many kids wake up at 5am, it's hard going but dropping naps doesn't change it.

It can help as my DS started sleeping later when he dropped his nap, but this was around 2 and three quarters. I have noticed on MN ‘drop the nap’ is often given as a suggestion to sleep problems but there aren’t many two year olds who don’t need one at all. We discovered the same as OP; you can’t force it. It’s probably easier just to get him up then keep going back and forth to his room.

How old is he? It does sound like he still needs a nap, but 5am - 6am waking up for the day is normal for lots of toddlers.

When DD1 was 3yo, she went into the preschool room at nursery which didn't offer a nap to all children. So she quickly dropped hers (probably FOMO 😆) but she kept napping at home on a weekend until she was 3y 8m (only just dropped it really now). You could try something like this and see if some weekend catch ups help settle things a bit? I think there is a bit of a sleep regression around 2.5y, so if he is nearer this age, might also be worth starting to enforce it again and seeing if it was just a bit of a regression he was going through?

I don't know how old your DS is but 5am would be a normal wake up time for us too. I have two early risers. Although in the last week they've gone from waking at 545ish to DS 3.5yo waking at 630 and DC 20mo waking at 5am. We shall see how long it lasts. For the eldest I found that dropping the last nap took longer and some days he'd have it and others he wouldn't. The youngest isn't ready to drop it, he might be an early riser but he can't stay up for 12 hours straight. But they definitely go through nap refusal at about his age.

How old? Could you try a groclock?

She says at the end of their first paragraph they have one.

But I think an hour in bed isn’t realistic for a child of napping age.

Sorry completely neglected to say he's 3.5. I just refuse to believe that 5am is wake up time for us. I wake up everyday trying to solve this like I'm trying to solve physics problems 😂

So when we first dropped it we found he needed a nap twice a week to catch up and he'd have one on a Weds at nursery and a Sat at home. We'd capped them to 20-30 mins by this point. Then he stopped having the nursery one so they'd be keeping him up Tues-Thurs and then he'd nap on a weekend. The problem we found is his sleep improved during the week when he didn't nap and then went to shit on a weekend because he did nap. It's like a ridiculous riddle.

I think three and a half is late to still be napping, so he probably could do with dropping it. It’s hard when they wake so early they do need it though.

His best mate at nursery still naps for 45 mins every day and gets up at 6.30. I heard them say to mum yesterday "oh that's not bad is it". I nearly cried through my eye bags 😂

I have to say on the days that DD1 was still napping at 3.5y, she would sleep 7.30pm-8am and nap from 1pm-3pm! So she is definitely a high sleep needs child. 😬 Paying for it with my youngest though who has had a run of 4am wakes over the past month after starting nursery and adjusting to their nap times, which coincided with me going back to work!! 🥴😴

At that age he probably does need to be dropping the nap, I’m assuming he’ll be starting school in September so good to drop it now to get him ready. But yes unfortunately 5am is wake up time for some! I feel your pain, we have it too at the moment. By 6am this morning me and both DC were downstairs and already had breakfast and got school and nursery bags ready. I can’t wait for them to start sleeping later.

His bday is October so he's at school 2026. It just sucks having an early riser coz I like my sleep! I wouldn't complain if it was 6 but 5 is grim.

4am is so gross. I feel for you.

At 3.5 I'd forget the nap and work on getting him to stay in bed in the mornings. At that age DD had a gro-clock and a star chart for staying in bed. When it was red she had to close her eyes and try to go back to sleep, but she could turn her Yoto player on to listen to stories. When it was orange she was allowed to look at books or play with teddies in bed. But she wasn't allowed to get up and come in to me until it was green.

Be firm and consistent, plenty of repetition, plenty of reward when he does it and eventually it will click and his body will adjust. You might not get him much beyond 6.30 – you can't completely adjust their natural wake up time – but there's no reason a 3.5 year old can't be taught to understand that before the light turns green they are NOT allowed to get out of bed.

Could have written this ourselves! Our DD is 3 and 4 months. Always been an early girl, we did the exact same as you with the same results. We reintroduced a nap, no more than an hour but she usually has 30-45 mins & wakes up herself. She is now in bed for 1930 and wakes around 0610 but lays in bed singing until her gro clock changes at 0630. You’ve given it a good go so personally I would try reintroducing a small nap! It feels like we live in such a different house now it’s so worth it, plus due to the ‘lie in’ it’s not the end of the world if she misses the odd nap or falls asleep in the car. Good luck, it’s tiring 😴

Pretty much the same here. We’ve successfully gone from 5.30 to 6.15 - wanted to make it achievable to get his sticker so set it for 6 initially, now it’s 6.15 and we plan to move it forward to 6.30 next week where we’ll probably stay as it would rush our weekday mornings too much if he got up later than about 6.40. But it’s worked really, really well. Definitely recommend you try the groclock if you haven’t already OP!

We have a gro clock, well we have Ollie the Owl and he's blue at night and orange when he wakes. Have had one since the start of the year and he pays zero attention to it. I might try a reward scheme. He has CP so some of his development is behind (tho he has a good level of understanding generally) but I'll see if he can understand the concept of a sticker chart. We are firm in taking him back to bed before Ollie the Owl wakes up but some mornings we are back and forth for an hour so there's zero snoozing ability for us. It's forced us to sleep separately for the last 2 weeks so we can share the early wakes between us.

I might tell nursery to see if he wants a nap tomorrow. We had a paed appt this morning and he was trying to fall asleep at 10.45 on the way to nursery and I forgot to tell them to see if he wanted to sleep today! I am so sure he's overtired poor bugger.

Yeah DD was a generally very eager to please wee thing but I’m not sure the gro-clock would have worked without the reward chart. Give it a go. Hope it works for you, I’m also not a morning person and early wakes were a killer.

Sticker chart instrumental to groclock success here too. And he is not an eager to please child AT ALL 🤣 We had a failed attempt without a few months prior. But the promise of a toy he really wanted in return for getting his stickers absolutely worked! Sticker chart is long gone and he still listens to the clock too so it cemented the habit long term. I’d definitely give it a try OP!

Poor thing. Vicious cycle to get stuck in! Let us know how you guys get on OP